Are they somehow making it grow?
Like adding fertilizer to a batch of weeds?
And if so, does that mean it will continue to encroach and maybe even take over the rest of Summerland?
“Ever,” Damen says. “We can explore if you want, but there’s really not much to see, is there? It seems like it’s just more and more of the same, doesn’t it?”
I gaze all around, reluctant to give up so easily, and yet not really knowing what I’m looking for, or even how to go about proving my theory. So I start to turn away. Start to move toward him again when I hear it.
The song.
Drifting from behind me, as though carried by a long and distant breeze, but still there’s no mistaking it.
No mistaking the voice—the words—the eerily haunting tune.
And I know without looking it’s her.
Turning to find her pointing finger, her crooked, gnarled hand, raised high as she sings:
From the mud it shall rise
Lifting upward toward vast dreamy skies
Just as you-you-you shall rise too…
Only this time, she continues, adding more lines she definitely didn’t sing the last time we were here:
From the deep and dark depths
It struggles toward the light
Desiring only one thing
The truth!
The truth of its being
But will you let it?
Will you let it rise and blossom and grow?
Or will you damn it to the depths?
Will you banish its worn and weary soul?
And just when I’m thinking it’s over, she does the weirdest thing.
She holds her hands up before her, cupping them as though anticipating some kind of offering, as Misa and Marco suddenly step out from behind her and stand on either side.
The two of them flanking her, gazing intently upon me, as the old woman closes her eyes in deep concentration as though trying to manifest something spectacular.
But all she gets for her efforts is a spray of gray ash that emanates from the center of her palms and falls gently to her feet.
And when she lifts her gaze to meet mine, her face appears stricken, as her eyes stare accusingly.
Damen grasps my arm and quickly pulls me away. Away from her. Away from them. Desperate to escape this creepy scene.
Both of us clueless as to who she is, where she came from, or what the song could possibly mean.